The A1 Grand Prix series visits Australia for the first time this week, with A1 Team Lebanon expecting to receive plenty of support from the local Lebanese communities with over 300,000 living in the country. The team arrives at Eastern Creek raceway near Sydney with its best finish in the series so far, an eleventh place in the Feature race at the A1 Grand Prix of Nations event in Estoril.

In the week leading up to the race weekend, the two Lebanese drivers, Khalil Beschir and Basil Shaaban, will undertake a busy schedule of media and publicity activities including interviews with local and international Arabic media, Sydney Harbour Bridge- walking for television promotion, taking part in a surf school with five times women's World Surfing Champion, Layne Beachley at Bondi Beach and attending a New South Wales Government Reception at Government House, Sydney, hosted by the Premiere of New South Wales, Mr Morris Iemma.

The A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Australia at Eastern Creek is expected to draw a sell-out crowd and the Lebanese team has received messages from many fans confirming that there will be plenty of Cedar-tree flags of Lebanon being waved in the grandstands. Shaaban drove his first races for the team in Estoril and is eager to be back in the car in Australia, saying, "There's a big buzz in Australia about this race, I think we're going to have great support from many nationalities, which is the essence of this Series. This is the first event of A1GP which has a large Lebanese community, so I hope we can put on a great show for our country."

Beschir, who drove the first two events of A1 Grand Prix, also hopes to be in the car representing his home country in front of the fans and adds, "It's our first visit to this spectacular country. We've only been here a few days and we're loving the experience. We've been made to feel very welcome here and I think this is going to be one of the best events so far. For A1 Team Lebanon it will be the first time that there has been strong support from the trackside spectators and I hope we'll have a chance to meet them, it's very important to us."

Eastern Creek Raceway is a new track to most of the A1GP drivers with few having raced competitively at the venue. Situated 40 kilometres from central Sydney, the circuit is popular for Australian V8 races. This weekend features historic racing, Formula Ford, Australian Formula 3 and GT championship races alongside the A1 Grand Prix Sprint and Features races. The 50 A1 racing cars have been air-freighted from Estoril and will be out on track for practice on Friday, with qualifying on Saturday and raceday on Sunday.